Caught the wind at last!

After a very slow and tedious first part of our crossing the wind finally found us a couple of days ago, which lifted the moral of the whole crew. Fortunately our engine has been very economical and with the extra fuel we took on board we were able to motor a fair distance meaning we were not too far behind but none the less sailing at 6 knots was a great relief. However, with this wind came the rock and roll, which makes everything ten times harder, but I cant complain! It has been a fairly uneventful crossing with the occasional flying fish joining us to create some excitement. Overall, we have seen very little in the way of wildlife but the other day we saw a massive Tuna jumping out of the water followed by a couple of dolphins pouncing after it. I’m sure that Tuna was not heading for a happy ending.

The weather has been very unpredictable as we saw last night when we were hit by a couple of squalls giving the boat a rinse and soaking me in the process. These squalls are quite exhilarating when you are prepared for them as the wind gusted up to 30 knots, the rain pounded down and we started surfing the waves at 8-9 knots which felt like we were flying. On the other hand this is not a pleasant surprise if you are not expecting it! It is also quite fun to track them on the radar; more fun that watching a huge black cloud surge up behind you. None the less this just proves how varied the weather is out at sea as one moment we had 3- 7 knots of wind and the next gusts of up to 30 knots but it has been good to experience both ends of the spectrum.

As part of crossing the Atlantic we are heading west all the time so we go through several time changes. They recommend that you do this gradually, changing the time over the course of 3 weeks but the men thought that it would be too much of a hassle to change the time on their various electronic devices three times so decided to do it in one go. I’m not sure I would agree as the result was that we were all wiped out and found that night particularly long.

Tonight is our last full night as we expect to be arriving into St Lucia in the early hours of Sunday morning. We have watched our position reports gradually get smaller as more and more boats have arrived but it feels strange that we will finally be there. I have found that I have adapted to life on board and I have tried to avoid counting the days but I cannot actually believe that we are getting there. Having said that I have never been more ready to get off a boat, have a cold drink, a shower and connect to the world again in my life. It has been a very strange couple of weeks as a lot seems to have gone on in the world yet we have been oblivious to it except from a few family news reports. Whilst I will admit that there have been difficult patches and times when I have considered jumping overboard it has been a lot of fun, very memorable and an experience I’m sure I will never forget.